“We’re going to have a ride,” observed Fenn.
“Quiet, Stumpy,” cautioned Bart, in a whisper. “Keep still, and let’s see if we can catch on to what they’re doing.”
A little later their hands and feet were bound, and the candidates were put into a large wagon, and the drive began. It lasted for some time, and, try as they did, Bart and his chums could not imagine in which direction they were being taken. But, as they were familiar with the country for several miles in any point of the compass from Darewell, they were not worried.
“Halt!” Sandy finally ordered, and the creaking, jolting wagon came to a stop.
“Ye have one more chance, candidates,” went on the president, as he touched the foreheads of the four with something cold and clammy—a hand, from the feel of it, but it was only a rubber glove, filled with cracked ice. “One more chance ere ye dare the dangers of the bottomless pit,” went on Sandy. “Wilt withdraw?”
“Naw, let her go,” replied Fenn nonchalantly.
“’Tis well. The bottomless pit awaits ye,” threatened Sandy, and then, one at a time, the four were carefully lowered over the side of the wagon, down into some depths, as they supposed, but in reality only a short distance, so strangely are distances rendered when one is blindfolded.
“Ye are now in the pit, whence there is no escape,” went on Sandy, “but, if ye are true knights, and no craven cowards ye will come to no harm. In one hour’s time we shall release ye. Bide here until we return.”
His voice sounded faint and far away, but it was only because he was speaking into a pasteboard box he had brought along for that purpose. Then the sound of the wagon departing was heard, and the four chums were left, sitting they knew not where, with their hands and feet tied, and their eyes bandaged.